Millipedes

Giant African millipedes.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Did you know they are kept as pets?  Seriously!  The giant African millipede (archispirostreptus gigas), as its name suggests, lives in Africa, East Africa to be more specific.  It is black in color and can live 5-7 years.  When it is threatened it will either curl up in a tight ball using its exoskeleton as armor or it will secrete an irritating liquid from its pores.

When they were younger, Shelley Merk and her brother had 4 giant African millipedes named Fluffy (a 4yr old named it), Fatty (because he was..fat), Warwound (he had a crack in his exoskeleton on his head), and Muhammed. It's difficult to know if you have male or females, but apparently they had at least one of each because they bred...which is also very rare in captivity. They had hundreds of little babies whose exoskeletons lack pigment when they are tiny making them slightly transparent. The babies usually stayed under the cocoa fiber until there was food, then they would cover the food and gorge!!! You can feed them partially squishy veggies that you wouldn't eat, so we gave them some big chunks of tomatoes, which made them look pink because of the slight transparency!!!  They also weren’t very fast.  Shelley and her brother would let the millipedes out of their aquarium and, because they were kids, forget about them.  Hours later they would remember that the millipedes were out, run and try to find them, only to discover they were 1 foot from where they originally were left.  The number of legs don’t make them fast, rather they give them strength for digging through soil and debris.